


Just another uneventful day in Syracuse

by nonagesimus



Category: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)
Genre: F/M, sinbad kind of gets mentioned so he's around too in spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25374247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonagesimus/pseuds/nonagesimus
Summary: A few years before Sinbad's return, the betrothed Proteus and Marina experience one chaotic day that draws them closer together.
Relationships: Marina/Proteus (Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas)
Kudos: 10





	1. Morning

By now, Lady Marina was well-accustomed to traveling back and forth between Syracuse, her adopted home, and her birthplace of Thrace. As the fiancée of the prince of Syracuse, and an appointed ambassador to the city, she had many duties there. And despite the fact that Thrace was her ancestral home, she always slept better in Syracuse. Her rooms there in the royal palace were smaller, yes, but cozier, more comfortable—they felt even more like home than her birthplace, especially after eight years.

Syracuse was a warm, mellow, welcoming place. The balmy, always-summer climate fit well with the look of the city: a lush ocean bracketed it with profound blue, foam washing gently against the docks; the city itself was a forest of tall slender white towers of marble and gold, rising up high on a series of hills so that anyone approaching seaward for miles around could easily see the city taking shape proudly on the horizon. In the mornings, the sunrise gilded the city splendid and gleaming with warm amber light, dimpling on the white of the towers. It was deeply peaceful, especially at this time in history—no wars, solid alliances with all surrounding nations, no particular strife to disrupt Syracuse’s calm.

In the mornings, Marina liked to wake early and take a walk to the docks, sometimes sitting on the very edge and gazing out over the rippling pink-reflected water. The only sounds around her would be distant shouts of sailors doing business on their ships, and the gentle swish of the water against the dock, and the cries of gulls overhead. At that time of day, much of Syracuse was still asleep, and a tranquil energy had a hold over the city, seeping into Marina’s bones and making her feel honey-warm and heavy, like good medicine.

Today, though, she didn’t get the chance to slip down to the ocean. The sun was barely peeking up in the east when Marina woke in her chambers, shifting and stirring in her bed with her blankets bunching around her legs. It took her a few moments to pull herself confused out of deep sleep, and she pushed herself up until she was sitting hunched and tired, rubbing her eyes.

The sound that woke her came into focus slowly: a high-pitched, whistle-like screaming, coming from down the hall. So much for Syracuse being peaceful.

She knew at once who that voice belonged to, and therefore, she knew that the screaming was probably nothing to be concerned about. Scowling and rubbing the heel of her palm against her sleep-crusty eyes some more, Marina forced herself out of bed and stomped over to her wardrobe to dress. A typical lady would allow two or three female servants to dress her, but all the servants of the palace knew by now that Lady Marina, out of principle, would allow them to do nothing for her that she could do for herself. Besides, she was far too cranky at the moment to put up with a servant’s poking and prodding. The shrill voice from down the hall was only growing louder, shouting incoherently, while a chorus of other voices pleaded with it to calm down and be silent. Whatever was wrong _this_ time, it had better be _good_.

Three sharp raps at her door. “Come in,” Marina called, making a few final adjustments to her sea-blue peplos.

The door opened and her fiancé entered, already dressed in his boots, loose dark pants and blue tunic with a gold sash. He offered a sheepish smile. “Ahem. You may have noticed a _slight_ disturbance down the hall…”

“I think they’ve heard that screaming in Athens by now,” Marina grumbled, but she couldn’t keep a fond smile from her face at the sight of Proteus. Seeing him made every day, no matter how terrible, a little better. “What’s bothering her majesty _this_ morning?”

“Evidently her favourite golden diadem has turned up missing. The princess is convinced it was stolen from her chambers.”

“Of course,” Marina sighed, blowing a wayward strand of hair out of her face with an exhaled puff of air. “And I suppose we’re to recover it for her?”

“Someone certainly must, or she’ll ‘burn the whole city down.’ Her words.” Proteus’s face took on a twisted grimace. “Honestly, I don’t doubt her for a moment.”

“And I suppose because she’s a foreigner from Damascus, I’m the one expected to deal with it,” Marina said with a little more annoyance and venom than she intended.

“If you don’t want to, I entirely understand,” Proteus replied quickly. “By all means, stay here and go back to sleep; I’ll handle it.” The screaming rose in pitch, and Proteus winced. “Or… perhaps seek out a room on a _quieter_ floor of the palace.”

“No, no. I’m coming. It’s my duty to handle these types of things diplomatically. For better or worse,” Marina groaned, rolling her eyes skyward as deafening curses become audible from down the hall.

Moments later, they’d headed down the hallway to the Princess Desma’s chambers, and were attempting, as many servants had done before them, to calm the slighted royal.

Desma, the daughter of the king of Damascus and (for some awful reason) his chosen representative to Syracuse, was a short, slender, deeply unpleasant woman of perhaps thirty-five. You wouldn’t think such boistruous character could exist in such a small body, but the princess possessed a wicked temper which had made itself known every single day of her diplomatic visit to Syracuse. This was the worst outburst of all. ( _So far_ , Marina reminded herself with a shudder: the princess’s visit was to last at least five more days.)

“Please just listen to us, Your Majesty.” Proteus was at his wits’ end; Marina could practically feel the irritation vibrating from him where he stood beside her. “We’ll replace your lost item gladly—”

“No replacements, I want the real thing!” howled the princess. Her chambers were a garbage heap: clothes and sheets and objects tossed and thrown everywhere as though a hurricane had been set loose. (Which it _had_ been: a hurricane named Desma. The traumatized servants standing near the door could attest to this.) “This happened in _your_ city, in _your_ palace, and I want you to make it right!”

“We _will_ make it right,” Marina soothed. “I’ll send a patrol of guards to search for your diadem right away. No corner of the palace will be left unsearched.”

“No corner of the _city!_ ” corrected Desma spitefully. “That object was passed down through generations of my family. The last thing I have left of my grandfather’s—!” She was edging dangerously close to hysteria again, voice rapidly rising in pitch.

“I understand,” said Marina, calm and sympathetic, stepping forward as close to the princess as she dared, “how important your traditions are. How precious that diadem must be to you. You feel slighted, wronged. We are… _so_ apologetic.” (Only Proteus, here, would hear the biting sarcasm in her tone; he was the only one who knew her well enough.) “No matter how, we will do our best to correct this wrong. On my own honour.”

“And mine,” echoed Proteus seriously, stepping forward.

Desma’s gaze flickered, furious, between the both of them. “You will,” she spat. “And if it’s not found, Damascus and Syracuse will never exchange a friendly word again. _Never_. Mark my words well!”

Proteus and Marina exchanged a look, and she saw the worry furrowed between his brows: the prince was genuinely troubled by this threat. “We understand, Your Majesty,” Marina said deferentially, bowing her head to the princess.

“Good. Now go. Get out. Take this useless clump of ingrates with you.” She threw a jewel-bedecked hand at the three servants hovering near the door. “And get better help! These fools were no help at all!” she shouted after them, the last thing Marina and Proteus heard before the door to the princess’s chambers slammed shut behind them.

“I find myself believing that she meant what she said. That she’ll truly destroy relations between our two cities over this simple, stupid thing.”

Proteus and Marina were strolling down a long hallway in the palace, taking their time to pace slowly together as they spoke. To their right—the east—the wall was open save for a succession of decorative pillars, and the morning sunlight streamed in, illuminating all in gold. Marina looked sidelong at her fiancé; his long, angular face was cast half in golden light and half in shadow, making the sharpness of his cheekbones even more apparent. He looked troubled, mouth tight, and Marina felt a burst of odd affection, and wanted to run her thumbs over those cheekbones, wanted—more than the limited privacy of a palace hallway, and their chaste royal courtship, allowed.

She settled for reaching over and touching his hand lightly. “You’ve watched her make a dozen threats over the past few days. The drapes aren’t her favourite colour, so she’ll have Dymas overthrown by her private army. The musicians in the street are too loud, so she’ll use warships to bring the city to its knees.” Her tone became more exasperated as she went on. “Desma is _ridiculous_ , Proteus. She is a ridiculous prat of a woman, and probably completely out of her mind. I wouldn’t be too concerned about any threats of hers. Besides, we’ve already sent guards to search for the diadem; we’ve done all we can do.”

“She seemed more serious this time. To me, at least. And I do worry…”

“I know you do. Syracuse is your baby,” Marina mocked, but gently, very gently, and with a healthy dose of fondness. “I think the city will survive this. In any case, her diadem will likely be found within the hour. She’s probably dropped it behind some cushion somewhere.”

“If it’s found behind a cushion, after all this nonsense, I might just sail to Damascus with a dozen warships and overthrow _their_ monarchy,” Proteus said irritably, and Marina laughed loud and clear as a bell, echoing through the hallway. She slipped her arm through his, and they continued on.

She glanced over at her fiancé, who’d gone suddenly quiet, and then she looked at him harder: Proteus seemed abruptly sad, contemplative. “What’s that look?” she questioned. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just…” He sighed. “My old friend, Sinbad. Years ago, I would have suspected him of this theft right away. He used to steal at his own leisure from the palace—anything he wanted, really—and I’d turn a blind eye because… Ah, I don’t even _know_ why. We were both _very_ stupid boys, Marina. You’re lucky you didn’t know me then.”

“I thank the gods for it every day,” Marina said solemnly, and Proteus chuckled.

“Yes, well. I just miss him. That’s all.”

The sheer scale of the longing in his voice took Marina by surprise, and she became aware that Proteus was sharing something quite private, a feeling he usually kept close to his chest. They knew each other well at this point—they had been engaged for eight years, and exchanged letters for some time before that—and Marina would even call the prince her best friend, but Sinbad was a name that had only cropped up once or twice, in the entire time she had known him. Yet clearly Proteus cared for him very much. This must have been a very private wound, one that Proteus had been nursing for years.

She rubbed his arm with her free hand, up and down, softly, trying to convey that she understood. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Where is he now? Has he…passed away?”

Proteus shrugged, looked out into the distance. “He left. He simply disappeared one day and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. I suppose our friendship meant more to me than to him. Either that or he’s dead. Truthfully, I’m not sure which option hurts more.”

“Perhaps there’s another explanation,” Marina proposed, grasping at straws to ease Proteus’s hurt. “Maybe… something came up, something he couldn’t tell you about, and he was forced to leave.”

“Maybe,” agreed Proteus, but there was doubt laced through the word. “The worst of the pirate gangs are always on the lookout for new slaves. He may have been abducted. I suppose I’ll never know the truth.”

Then Proteus laughed, though it was an awkward sound. “Don’t let me bore you with morbid talk, Marina. You’re allowed to tell me to shut up, you know.”

“I am,” the ambassador agreed archly, “and I will if I ever need to.” She patted his arm with gentle affection. “But I’ve never needed to. Or wanted to.”

Proteus smiled down at her, a warm and endearing curve of his lips. “Still,” he said, “you’re allowed.”

She smiled back, a sunbeam of tenderness striking her where it hurt most. They continued down the hall, leaning against each other; for a blissful minute, all thoughts of the princess and her diadem were forgotten.

There had been a time when Marina doubted she’d ever love the prince. _Like_ him, certainly, as a friend and as her partner in life—but it wasn’t a choice she’d made for herself, only a duty to which she’d bow her head and submit, and love wasn’t necessarily part of the equation.

The prince wasn’t hard to love, though, and she’d fallen by degrees, over years, during their engagement. She fell one degree on the day they first sat together at his desk, and she kept him company while he wrote boring royal correspondence concerning trade to some foreign duke; before long they’d been snickering over a shared joke, and she fell by one more degree each time they repeated the process, finding excuses to sit together and walk together and tour the palace together and explore Syracuse together. Soon they were doing everything together. She grew to feel a blooming, fluttering warmth in her chest at the sight of the prince and the curve of his smile and the warm pressure of her arm hooked around his.

They had everything in common. They both loved Syracuse, Proteus because he’d been born there, Marina because she’d chosen it as her new home, and because it was a lovely city, one of the most beautiful she’d ever seen. They were both born diplomats, able to weave their way through political maneuvering and pleasant conversations that were a front for something more complex underneath, and both able to privately discuss, and laugh about, said conversations later, when they were alone. They both liked sailing, and history, and immersing themselves in different cultures; they both could spend hours buried in a book, and could both spend hours talking with each other about all these things, talking and debating and bursting into laughter at regular intervals. And slowly but surely, Marina was no longer marrying him out of duty; she was marrying him because he was her best friend, and, as the years went by, because she couldn’t imagine herself with anyone else in the world.

It had been eight years of engagement and they hadn’t kissed, hadn’t done anything of the sort, even though they’d had ample opportunity. She knew Proteus had great fondness for her, if only as a friend: knew it by the multitude of affectionate gestures he’d shown her over the years, by the hundreds of times he could’ve chosen to go anywhere and do anything, and had chosen to spend time with her instead. But she didn’t know if he felt what she did: the curious warmth, the burgeoning tenderness, that had been growing and growing for as long as she’d known him. 

She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter: they’d spend the rest of their lives together, eventually as the rulers of Syracuse, and likely would have children, and would never be apart for long, tied down to their city as they were. Until they were old and grey, they would be together, and Marina tried to tell herself this was enough. Sometimes she looked at him, and he smiled back at her, and she remembered she would spend forever with this person, and it _was_ enough. But—but. There were times when it wasn’t. There were times when she felt a knife-wound of pain at the idea that Proteus only was wedding her out of duty, and times when she wanted to ask him outright, wanted to recklessly kiss him, even, to see what he’d do. There were times when she wanted to _know_.

But for now they were walking arm and arm in the palace, the golden early morning sunlight shining on them in gentle beams, and feeling the weight of him beside her was enough: not because it had to be; just because it was.


	2. Midday

Of course, nothing lasts forever, especially moments of happiness. Later, Marina would reflect that she and Proteus were perhaps quite foolish to believe they could spend the rest of their day in peace.

They were on the docks, speaking to the leader of a small foreign tribe about establishing diplomacy and trade between his tribe and Syracuse, when a man dressed in the gray-and-gold of the royal guard dashed up to them, boots thumping on the wooden dock, out of breath. “Your highnesses,” he gasped, “it’s Princess Desma—she’s gone missing.”

Proteus and Marina exchanged a quick, worried-yet-exasperated glance before they rushed back to the palace. There, they found that it was true. The princess’s chambers were empty; there was no sign of her anywhere, and she had not been seen leaving her rooms.

The prince and the ambassador were informed that there was one witness to the event: a terrified servant girl, who only spoke Aramaic. As Proteus’s grasp of that language was rusty, it fell to Marina, ever the polyglot, to translate. The ambassador sat the skinny girl down on Desma’s opulent bed and knelt before her, encouraging her gently as best she could in Aramaic, attempting to get the servant to reveal what she knew. It took a long while of near-incoherent wailing, but eventually, Marina was confident that she’d heard the whole story.

Marina stood up, knees wobbling a bit from kneeling for so long, and went to Proteus. Quietly, she said: “The girl says Desma was kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped! But how? There are guards on every floor of the palace, and none saw anything of the kind.”

“Apparently, they went through the window.” Marina gestured doubtfully toward the grand window beside the bed.

Proteus’s eyes bulged. “Impossible. That leads to a sheer hundred-foot drop.”

Together, they went to the window and leaned out, staring down at the ground far below: what Proteus said was true. Wind ruffled Proteus’s hair, which was slowly coming endearingly untucked from his ponytail in the chaos, as he turned to Marina with a worried frown and said, “Marina, what in all the gods’ names is going on?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, just as worried. “The girl said that a strange, masked man came into the room through the window, fought briefly with the princess, subdued her, simply carried her out the window and disappeared. The servant was hiding under the bed, watching all this.”

“And you believe her?” Proteus raised one eyebrow. “It sounds too wild to be true. Perhaps the princess merely went out for a look at the city, and the young lady dreamed up this story for attention.”

“It’s possible…” admitted Marina with a helpless shrug. “But for this to happen on the same day her diadem was stolen—what’s the connection? I don’t understand _any_ of this.”

From behind them, the girl began babbling again. Marina went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Slow down, I don’t understand,” the ambassador implored in Aramaic, and the girl did slow down and repeated her words until Marina was able to understand her.

She looked over her shoulder at Proteus, a knot of fear between her eyebrows.

“She says she forgot something. Something the kidnapper said.”

“What was it?”

Marina swallowed and repeated the words, translating them. “I will return the princess…in exchange for the prince.”

Not half an hour later, a letter arrived at the palace, neatly rolled into a tight scroll and bound with a ribbon of red silk. It was addressed to Prince Proteus. Normally the prince delegated a secretary to sift through all his personal mail, but today, tensions were high, and Proteus received this particular letter himself.

He and Marina sat on a wooden loveseat by a wide window in the palace, overlooking the sea, but neither of them was in the mood to admire the noontime ocean view. They opened the letter together, in the company of four royal guards and King Dymas himself, who had interrupted an important meeting with delegates from Rome in order to deal with the matter of the missing princess. The king loomed over them, a nervous pillar of robes and beard, as they read.

Proteus and Marina skimmed the letter as one, Proteus holding it and Marina leaning against him and craning her neck so they could both read it. Proteus shifted it towards her to give her a better view. She wasn’t sure she _wanted_ a better view, but it needed to be read, after all.

“Well? What does it say?” demanded Dymas, impatient.

Proteus responded with abnormal calm. “I’m to visit Old Syracuse before nightfall, a certain building in the westernmost district, or the princess’s throat will be cut.”

“Her throat will—!” An astonished Dymas couldn’t finish his sentence, eyes like dinner plates. “According to _whom_?”

“The letter is signed ‘a friend,’” replied Marina tightly, taking the paper from Proteus’s hands and tracing it with her own eyes. “There’s nothing more to identify the writer.”

“And the handwriting? Are there any clues there?” Dymas leaned over her, tracing the writing with his own eyes.

Proteus said, “I’ve certainly received enough correspondence from Princess Desma to know how she writes. The handwriting is her own.”

“Forced to write the letter at knifepoint, perhaps,” the king muttered, stalking a little ways away and pacing with hands clasped tightly behind his back. “This is a miserable turn of events for Syracuse. If anything should happen to her—the questions Damascus will ask of us—”

“I’ll go to Old Syracuse immediately,” said Proteus, standing up abruptly.

Dymas and Marina both stared at him. “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Dymas. “I’ll send guards to raid the building—”

“And risk her life? No, the solution here is _not_ to barge in with swords drawn; absolutely not. I’ll allow a small company of soldiers to accompany me in secret, but I am going alone and unarmed, as the letter requested. Perhaps we can resolve this with no bloodshed.”

“Proteus,” said Marina in frightened exasperation, “you can’t be serious. You’re being remarkably naïve—”

“I’m being _careful_ ,” Proteus fired back. “And both of you know I can handle myself if I should be threatened.”

“But you don’t know what’s waiting for you there,” Marina argued, hands unconsciously twisting in the fabric of her peplos. “How many belligerents, what they’re armed with, what their intentions are—you don’t know _anything_.”

“And there is no way, or _time_ , to find out without endangering the princess!” Proteus insisted. “We all know that relations with Damascus will be on very shaky ground after this, regardless of whether the princess is returned safe. They are one of our most important allies and trading partners, and one of their highest royals is in jeopardy in _our city_. We must be as cautious as we can in handling this. My safety doesn’t matter as much as the fact that we did _everything_ we could to return the princess safely. That will buy us favour with Damascus regardless of the outcome today.”

“No,” snapped King Dymas, taking a step towards the prince. “Hang our relations with Damascus. You are my only son.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Proteus with an annoyed sort of fondness. “You know as well as I that the larger picture is what matters here. We can’t afford to be negligent.”

“He’s right,” said Marina, who had been thinking hard for the past few minutes, frowning with thought. “Damn it all, but he’s right. It’s midday—there’s no time to arrange things, no time to come up with sophisticated plans. If we want to avoid an international incident, we must act like the princess is in imminent danger and react accordingly. We can take precautions, but—if they want Proteus by sundown, they’ve got to have him.”

Dymas scowled hard, snarling. “I will not allow you to put your life at risk! Not for the demands of some enemy we can’t even name! Not for that wretched princess!”

“It’s not about the princess,” Proteus barked, rounding on his father, patience finally worn away. “Can’t you see that? It’s bigger than that.”

“And if you’re hurt? If you die?”

“I won’t be killed,” Proteus replied, calmer now, placing a placating hand on his father’s shoulder. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, son, but—” Dymas cut his words off, conflicted. “You’re far too quick to risk yourself. But I do trust your judgement.”

Marina could agree with that sentiment: frantic visions were flashing through her mind, of Proteus hurt, Proteus dead, Proteus at the mercy of some unknown enemy. This had all happened so quickly; that very morning, it wouldn’t even have been imaginable.

“Then it’s settled. I’ll go now.” With that Proteus was heading off, striding purposefully away. Marina and Dymas watched him go for a moment, perhaps transfixed; then Marina rose up and, after a quick nod at the king, hurried after him. How could she do anything else?

“Where are you going?” she demanded of Proteus, once she’d caught up to him. They were walking down a hallway together, Proteus going so quickly that Marina struggled to keep up with his long steps.

“To muster a small group of soldiers,” Proteus replied shortly, not slowing his stride. “They can shadow me, but I’ll ensure they stay a safe distance away.”

“How is that going to help you? If you enter that building alone, and no one goes with you, how can anyone protect you?”

“A good question,” said Proteus, “but this isn’t about me. It’s about recovering the princess.”

Worry and anger surged like a stormy tide in Marina and she stopped dead, grabbing the prince by his shoulder to stop him in his tracks and swinging him around to face her. “Proteus,” she snapped. “For the gods’ sakes, just _wait_ a minute. You’re far too reckless with your own life!”

“You think I’m not frightened? I’m petrified. I have no idea what’s waiting for me there. But the princess—”

“Yes, I heard all the arguments you made to your father, and they’re all very true and very sensible, but you’re still the crown prince, and for crying out loud, I don’t want to _lose_ you!”

“I—” Proteus started, and then stopped. He just looked at her for a moment: Marina, cheeks flushed, breathing hard and staring fiery daggers at him. Something changed in his gaze and it dropped to her mouth, and for a moment Marina thought her fiancé was going to kiss her, and she _wanted_ him to, but the moment passed and he only reached down and took her hand in his own, curling his fingers through hers and holding their joined hands fast to his chest.

“This is happening so fast,” he said, calmly and clearly, but with an obvious storm of emotion underneath. “I don’t know what things will look like at the end of the day. I do know that we have to act _now_ if we want to avoid a diplomatic firestorm. If we had more time…” He broke off, shaking his head in fierce vexation.

She squeezed his hand. “I’ll come with you.”

“Oh. Marina, _no_. I won’t have you risking yourself as well.”

“Now you know how I feel,” she bit back. “Anyway, a foreign princess has been kidnapped. We don’t know who the perpetrators are. They could be foreigners as well. Not to mention the fact that I’m trained in matters of diplomacy and negotiation. You need an ambassador,” she said firmly. “This is what I’m _here_ for.”

“But…” Proteus, who already knew well that his fiancée’s will couldn’t be easily broken, seemed to be grasping at straws now. “To put _you_ in danger would endanger our relationship with Thrace, and I’m quite certain we’ve blundered relations with enough foreign powers for one day.”

“Proteus,” said Marina, cracking a knowing half-smile, “I’m no princess.”

Proteus easily grasped the several meanings in her words: he tightened his fingers woven through her own, giving her a returning smile so warm and devoted that her heart seemed to grow wings.

“No, I suppose you’re not,” he said. “Then let’s go.”

As they were heading down the stairs a minute later, a servant stopped them and informed them that the princess’s diadem was discovered behind a potted plant, about ten feet down the hall from her chambers. Neither Proteus nor Marina were particularly surprised.


	3. Evening

It was late in the day and the sun was getting dangerously low, casting long shadows. After leaving their meeting with Dymas, Proteus and Marina went at once to gather a small company of royal guards to accompany them on their trip to the district of Old Syracuse. Now, the prince walked through the streets of the city steady and determined, with five guards—wearing not guard uniforms, but whatever civilian clothes they could scrounge up in ten minutes—trailing him distantly, so as to not catch undue attention.

Proteus’s shadow reached out down the road behind him, a second prince from an ephemeral realm. Marina—lingering far behind, dressed in heavy dark robes with a hood cloaking her face so that she might not be recognized—wanted to reach out and grab onto the shadow’s hand and hold him in place, so that maybe Proteus might be stopped, too.

This business was all so ridiculous that, thinking about it, Marina could only shake her head in exasperated confusion. First the diadem, now the missing princess; what was the red string of fate that tied them together? Who were the dark figures who wanted Proteus so badly? _What_ did they want with the prince? Her teeth ground and her lips pressed tight together as she considered the possibilities: ransom, murder, espionage, war, perhaps a witches’ brew of all those at once. Her hand unconsciously went to her hip, feeling the vague shape, muffled under layers of fabric, of the knife she had strapped there. She’d fight tooth and nail to protect Proteus, whoever his enemies might be.

As for Princess Desma—well. Marina wouldn’t be donning her mourning clothes if Desma didn’t survive the day, but the alliance between the city-states of Syracuse and Damascus was another matter: there would be a tsunami of questions, and Syracuse’s every action would be scrutinized and picked apart. If Damascus did not feel that everything possible was done to save its princess, things might—a distant possibility, but _might_ —even lead to war. Her heart thrummed harder and her breath quickened, just thinking about it. For as long as she could remember, Syracuse had only known peace and prosperity. She’d looked forward to a lifetime of that peace, with Proteus by her side. For all that to be broken now…

It wasn’t the war she feared the most. It was losing the prince. The war was a distant worry, as insignificant as a buzzing mosquito, compared to the idea of anything happening to Proteus. Watching him walk down the street like this, never pausing or faltering—a death march— _no_ , she was being dramatic; this would probably all amount to nothing, she reminded herself harshly. But here Proteus was, not knowing what he was going to walk into, and yet never looking back. Because Syracuse needed him.

She loved him fiercely, all of a sudden, and knew it in every bone in her body. She began making herself wild promises: if they made it out of this alive, she’d marry him tomorrow—no, right the very first _second_ they got the chance, hang tradition and decorum and hang all the careful plans for their wedding that Dymas liked to make. Hang _everything_ except for the fact that she loved Proteus with every wretched muscle and vein and organ she possessed, knew it blazing down to the core of her, and if she had to lose him today, she didn’t know what she would do: she’d be lost, a boat unmoored in the vast waters of the ocean, no land in sight, nowhere to turn. 

Marina wasn’t a fervent believer in the supernatural—she respected the role of ceremony in daily life, but she didn’t put much stock in gods herself—but now she found herself praying to every god and goddess whose name she could remember. Her hand, again, went apprehensively to her knife.

They reached the building in Old Syracuse to which they’d been directed, a ramshackle dump of a place, or at least as ramshackle and dumpy as buildings could get in this gorgeous city. Proteus went in alone. Down the street, far enough away to avoid rousing suspicion, Marina watched the silhouette of him disappear into the door and her heart rose heavy into her throat, nearly choking her. Her first instinct was to run after him and damn the consequences, but she held herself steady and still.

Five minutes passed—ten. The sun lowered and lowered; shadows grew longer. Marina felt the insect-bites of agitation more sharply on her skin with each passing moment, and her imagination ran wild. Proteus hurt, Proteus dead, Proteus held hostage…

A sound, and her gaze jerked sharply upward. More sounds. Down the street, Proteus came bursting out of the door of the building, practically stomping. Even from this far away, Marina didn’t think she had ever seen him so angry. Summer-warm relief to see him alive and well mingled with utter bewilderment. Marina lifted an impotent hand, mouth opening and brow furrowing in confusion—

Princess Desma followed him. Just there behind him, the princess trailed him out the door, hands planted on narrow hips and looking quite smug and _not_ looking kidnapped whatsoever.

Proteus whirled around and said something very sharply to the princess, and Marina waved a hand at the five befuddled guards who were milling about, letting them know that they likely weren’t needed, and then began walking quite quickly, and then jogging, down the street towards the prince and princess.

“—an absolutely senseless thing to do,” said Proteus as his distant words coalesced into discernible speech. “The uproar you’ve caused—”

“Worth every effort,” said Desma, lifting her chin high. “Now perhaps you’ll take the search for my diadem seriously, won’t you?”

“Y—Your bloody diadem was found behind a potted plant hours ago!” Proteus cried in outrage. “You can have the damned thing! You’re absolutely deranged!”

Marina came to a stop beside the prince and stood there, boring holes into Desma with the force of her glare; the short snippets of conversation were more than enough for her to work out exactly what had happened and why, and she had never been so utterly incensed in her life. “You understand, of course,” she said, “that you caused an international incident to unfold today, and very nearly demolished relations between our two cities, all because of a _tiara_.”

“I did what I had to in order to get you fools to notice my problem,” snapped Desma quite primly. “You Syracusans would have let my property stay missing forever; you have absolutely no care for your guests—it’s outrageous—”

“So you thought _staging your own abduction_ would be a sensible thing to do.” Marina narrowed her eyes to slits, a kaleidoscopic sort of fury unfolding in her. “Do you know the prince was all but willing to die for your sake today? And his father and I were prepared to lose him? For _you_?”

“Yes,” said Desma, triumph lighting in her eyes, “and I hope it’s taught you all quite the lesson!”

In another universe Marina punched Princess Desma square in the face at this juncture. In this universe, the ambassador took a deep cleansing breath before continuing. She allowed her rage to leak through, just slightly: “Even if Proteus wasn’t worth thirty of you, what you did today would still have been outrageously reckless and borderline unlawful. You understand that we _must_ tell your father the king about this?”

“Tell him,” sneered Desma, “and I’ll tell him about how you lost my diadem.”

Marina and Proteus darted glances at each other; she saw in her fiancé all the exasperation and rage she felt. “I’m sure the disproportionate measures you took will far outweigh how Syracuse didn’t prostrate itself at your feet for the sake of an absent piece of jewellery,” Proteus said through ground teeth.

“You don’t know my father. He’ll care about this. He’ll care about how Syracuse has treated me so miserably all these days I’ve been here. He’ll care that you didn’t learn your lesson!”

“Your diplomatic relationship with Syracuse,” Proteus cut her off firmly, “is finished. Not Damascus’s, but _yours_. Tell your father to send a different representative next time he wishes to discuss matters with us.”

Marina’s gaze jerked toward Proteus in surprise, even while Desma began to stutter in outrage. Certainly they were both infuriated, but _this…?_

“You are _not_ —” Desma began to spit.

“Not the king? No, but I’m certain he’ll agree with my judgement. You can find your own way back to the palace.” With that Proteus turned and began stalking away down the street. With a quick glance at the princess, Marina rushed to follow him, leaving Desma behind, standing there alone.

Once she’d caught up to Proteus, she couldn’t stop looking at his face. Once he realized she was there, he slowed his furious stride to a calmer walk, but his face was still tight with anger—she had never seen him quite this way, and something was equally alien and exhilarating about it. “Proteus—”

“I know,” he exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck, “I reacted too strongly. My father will set it right, though I’m not sure he’ll be any less infuriated than I was.”

“Maybe,” she allowed, “you came down a little harsher than I would have expected, but come on—you had every right in the world to be angry. What a _stupid_ scheme. That woman—”

“I hope she’ll never show her face in Syracuse after this,” said Proteus darkly.

“If I were her, I damn well wouldn’t. Although she probably has _much_ less shame than I do.”

“Marina…” He let out another breath, harder and more full of anger than the last. “Do you know what I found in there, in that building?”

“Er… a very smug-looking princess?” ventured Marina.

“Not initially. Desma was hiding out in the basement. She’d left a very clever little note waiting for me on the ground floor.”

“What did the note say?” Marina asked, though with a note of hesitation in her voice, not sure she’d like the answer.

“It said that if I didn’t do exactly what the supposed kidnappers wanted of me, my fiancée would be the next target. That Desma would involve you, would take it that far…” Proteus wasn’t looking at her, and she saw fury flash in his eyes.

The ambassador blinked. “Well, I’m not—particularly surprised. She clearly meant to make us as nervous as possible. To punish us for neglecting to search for her diadem, or whatever nonsense.”

“Yes, but I.” He stopped dead in the street, closed his eyes tight. “If it had just been myself who’d been threatened, I would’ve been bewildered, frightened, maybe a little annoyed when I learned it was all false, but you—when I saw that note, I thought you would be in danger, out there on the street, that whoever was orchestrating this might be hunting you down already, and all these scenarios began running through my head, one over the other, and everything that had been so clear a moment before was suddenly confused and all chaos, and Marina, I came to realize a life without you isn’t worth imagining.”

Marina’s breath caught in her throat like a winged insect was stuck there, fluttering wildly. The blood-drained cast of his face, the tension in his jaw, the storm in his eyes, it was because he’d been afraid for her—had been forced to imagine the same future without her that Marina had been imagining, only without him, these past hours. 

She wrapped a hand round his arm, felt the strained rigidity there, but there was warmth, too. “When I thought some gang of mysterious political agitators wanted to abduct you for whatever reason, all I could think of was all the different ways I would burn everything to the ground if they hurt you,” she said, tumbling through the confession with less control and more emotion than she’d hoped.

Proteus looked at her with something helpless and questioning in his eyes, and if she’d been sure he wanted it, Marina would have said to hell with it and kissed him then. But he only laughed, sudden and desperate. “Can you _believe_ —” he said. “I mean, if I’d known this morning that my day would turn out like this, I would have stayed in bed.”

The pure absurdity of the situation hit Marina hard, and peals of stupidly surprised laughter began to bubble out of her, too. They laughed together for what felt like forever, and then turned and made their way back to the palace together, arm-in-arm.


	4. After

Marina sat at her desk, bending over a letter she’d received from her home in Thrace, with her hand covering her mouth and her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. The sunlight had long since faded away entirely, and only starlight twinkled through her open window, through which a gentle breeze issued and ruffled her hair, and gently shuffled the paper under her, too, so that she felt the need to anchor it with her elbow to prevent it from flying away—better safe than sorry. Two glass lanterns burned on either side of her desk, their light dancing in haphazard patterns over everything.

It was late at night, so late that all of Syracuse was asleep, a hush over the palace and the city. Marina had long since finished a series of frantic meetings with Dymas and Proteus and several fellow ambassadors and council members, all to discuss what should be done about Princess Desma: luckily, most everyone seemed to favour Proteus’s judgement, and it was agreed by all that Desma would not be welcome in the city again. The unhinged princess was currently sulking in her chambers, watched over by several guards in case she attempted further funny business, and tomorrow she’d be shipped back to Damascus, along with a very angry letter to her father from King Dymas (delivered specially by Syracuse’s ambassador to Damascus, in case Desma got any ideas in her head about interrupting the letter’s journey to her home city).

It was the outcome Marina had hoped for, and she wished she could put the entire ridiculous day to rest and go to sleep, but she hadn’t been able to retire: she’d tossed and turned in her bed for an hour before finally throwing up her hands and going to her desk to work for a while, which would hopefully calm her nerves. So far, it hadn’t been working. The letter she was poring over was a missive from her father describing the agricultural conditions in Thrace after some recent flooding they’d experienced; it was frightfully boring stuff, but even it wasn’t enough to soothe Marina’s mind.

She kept thinking about Proteus: everything about him, swirling in her head like eddies in a lake. How she’d thought she might lose him; how the dread of that possibility still remained, lodged in her heart like an arrow; how he’d looked, fiercely honest, when he’d said: _a life without you isn’t worth imagining_. How could she be _engaged_ to a man and still be so hung up on him? It defied logic, and she growled at herself in annoyance, passing her hand over her eyes.

Someone knocked at the door; she recognized that knock on the instant, the sharp pattern of raps. “Come in,” she called tiredly, but warmly.

A moment later Proteus had come up beside her, leaning against the desk and watching her with tiredly affectionate eyes. His warm, sure hand alighted on her shoulder, and she leaned into the touch. “Doing some late-night reading?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” She exhaled hard, staring down at the letter below her, whose carefully-written words had begun to blend and blur into abstract slashes and curves, for all that Marina couldn’t focus on them. “Today was a disaster, wasn’t it,” she said with a tired, wry laugh.

“That’s…one way to describe it,” Proteus allowed with a chuckle of his own. “I’m just glad my father saw my side of things. I was worried he’d be annoyed with me for how harsh I was on Desma, but I think if he’d had his own way tonight, she would’ve lost her head. _Gods_ , was he mad.”

“At least she’s got her diadem back,” Marina said dryly. “If he decides to behead her, she’ll be able to wear it in death. Should make her ghost happy.”

Proteus laughed loudly. There wasn’t any sweeter sound, she thought. His mere presence beside her suddenly seemed the most precious thing in the world.

“I was…” She hesitated a moment, unsure of whether it was wise to pursue this. “…thinking,” she forged on, perhaps foolishly, “only because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, about what I would’ve done. If you had.”

“Died,” Proteus supplied, because it seemed as though Marina’s tongue had dried up and stopped performing its functions.

“Died,” she repeated, with a small distant smile with no joy in it. She exhaled and rolled her eyes at herself. “I’ve just been thinking about it a second and you can already see I’m just—a mess.”

“I’m a mess, too. You’re in good company.” It was a weak attempt at a joke, and his wavering smile didn’t last long. “And what did you decide you’d have done? If I’d died?”

“I… It’s hard. To sum up all my thoughts. But I love Syracuse too much, now, to let it go. Perhaps eight years ago, if you’d died then, I would have just gone back to Thrace. But now…” _The city lives, the city breathes and beats under my feet, the city is you, and I’d never abandon your ghost_.

“I have too many memories here. Syracuse is like a living thing to me,” she said slowly, piecing the words together like a jigsaw puzzle with knife-sharp corners that cut her at every turn. “A friend, sort of. So I think I would stay here if you passed. I’d continue serving as ambassador, and find some way to help Dymas deal with the aftermath. It would hurt. Oh, Proteus—it would hurt so badly.” Her voice cracked, betraying the depth of the emotion she felt. “But I’d stay.”

Proteus was regarding her very seriously, his eyes gone dark, all traces of a smile long vanished. “You’d keep serving here,” he said. “Really, I don’t know why I even asked.” Marina was briefly afraid that he was angry, but he continued: “Marina, one thing I’ve known about you from almost the first moment I met you is that you’ll do your duty even if it destroys you.”

There was a dark sort of admiration in him; she saw it and she didn’t quite know what to do with it. “I’ve always been a perfectionist,” she admitted. “Abandoning a duty would hurt me far more than doing something painful. It always has.”

“If I die,” he said abruptly and quickly, “I give you permission to go.”

She blinked at him owlishly, unable to muster a response.

“Oh—” He reached around and rubbed the back of his neck, looking awkward. “That was maybe a stupid thing to say. I just want—I want you to know that if I die, you don’t have to feel—beholden to remain here. I don’t want you to feel like some widow wandering a graveyard for the rest of your life.” 

“I don’t expect you to die, though.” Marina reached out and took his hand, held it in both of her own, drawn by some longing she didn’t fully understand. “Not until we’re old and gray. So it doesn’t need to be something I think about.”

“Still,” he said, pursing his lips. “The thought of you—trapped here. Trapped by some sort of feeling of duty. It’s unpleasant.”

Marina had the feeling he wasn’t entirely speaking of today’s events any longer, and she almost asked him what he meant, but decided that was a question for another day. She stoked the back of his hand with a thumb. “We’re alive,” she said, “and we’re going to stay alive for a long, long time.”

“Yes, I hope you’re right.” He smiled at her, tired but genuine. “Maybe that’s enough talk of depressing subjects for now. What are you reading?”

“Oh—a letter from my father.”

With that, they fell into an easy conversation about the state of the weather in Thrace, which morphed into a debate about the political differences between Thrace and the Twelve Cities, which turned into a humorous discussion about whether Thrace or Syracuse had stupider politicians (both of their fathers and _themselves_ being Thracian or Syracusan politicians, they were both quite biased), which became a conversation about their childhood memories, and before Marina knew it an hour had passed. Proteus had begun to yawn, though he was trying to disguise it, and had also begun to gripe about how the hard desk was hurting his backside, but Marina fought the urge to shoo him off to bed, because she wanted to keep talking to him—wanted to keep enjoying his presence—wanted to keep remembering, reminded by him just being there, that he hadn’t died today, that her terrors had been entirely unfounded and based on a pack of ridiculous lies. Because her heart hadn’t quite caught up to what her mind knew.

Her mouth blurted stupidly without her brain’s approval. “I was so scared I’d lose this.”

The prince blinked at her, frowning in confusion, a half-smile still there on his face from the laughter of moments ago. “What—?”

“ _This_. Just—being with you. These little moments, they add up to the most special thing I’ve ever had in all my life, with anyone. And I—I thought you might die today. Without you ever knowing that I—” She cut off her foolish bumbling ramble, closing her eyes tightly in frustration with herself. “I’m glad it was all a hoax. I’m angry beyond words with that idiot Desma, but—I’m glad.”

When she opened her eyes again, Proteus was staring at her in the flickering lamplight with an expression she couldn’t read. “You’ve put it into words better than I could,” was all he said.

“Have I?” the ambassador said dumbly, fighting back stupid tears.

“Yes, I—I’ve been feeling something the same way, but. It’s difficult for me to know what’s appropriate to say and what isn’t. We’re engaged, and you’re of course my best friend in the world, but I think today has made it abundantly clear that I care for you—well—more than what’s expected of us. To say the least.” He looked her in the eye all the while, but with an awkwardness in the way he tripped through his words that signified the difficulty he was having expressing this emotion, how profound it was to him.

 _Appropriate to say_ …was he under the impression that Marina cared for him as a friend only? Of course, it would make sense if he was—she’d been hiding the oceanic depth of her fondness for him under a veil of propriety and ceremony for all these years, despite the easy friendship they shared. But suddenly and very fiercely, she wanted him to know exactly where she stood without doubt or misconception.

If it hadn’t been a uniquely trying and emotional day, Marina wouldn’t have dared to do anything of the sort—but it had been, and so she did. She reached up with one slender arm, half-rising out of her chair in the process, and hooked it round the prince’s neck so she could pull him down. If her other hand hadn’t been braced on the desk she would have stroked his face, feeling his cheekbones under her fingers as she’d wanted to do for so long. She had to make do with her awkward position, though, and it was enough, her hand winding around to thread through his hair and cup the back of his head as she kissed him so, so gently.

Somewhere in the back of her mind had been a distant worry that Proteus wouldn’t reciprocate, but he did, right away and without hesitation, strong arms winding round her back to lift her up. They tangled around each other and kissed and kissed, each pouring into the contact what they’d had difficulty speaking out loud. She felt a fierceness growing in the very core of her chest like the kindling of a fire, a love and protectiveness for this person so strong that it felt as though it would melt her down to her bones, and she knew heart-deep that she would never let him walk into danger alone again.

Some part of Marina would always be in this union at least partly because of duty—because Thrace needed her to marry him, because Syracuse needed her to marry him—and another, yearning, childlike part of her would always, always long to be traveling the open sea instead of shackled down to land by a marriage to a prince. But in that moment, and many of the moments that followed, those parts of her seemed very small and distant indeed, haphazardly blowing like a speck of dust in the wind, almost entirely forgotten. And if she had to be shackled down to land, she would always remind herself that there was no one better to be tied to than Proteus.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading stan sinbad for clear skin


End file.
